


if you say so

by karnsniehaus



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, i have no idea why i did it, i'm sorry in advance, read it at your own risk, this is very sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 17:51:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18833707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karnsniehaus/pseuds/karnsniehaus
Summary: Carmilla is used to death, it's fine.But when it came to Laura, she never thought something would hurt that much.





	if you say so

**Author's Note:**

> this was inspired by episode 17, season 2 of 9-1-1 and i do regret writing it but i also don't, so there's that.   
> the song i used for the title is if you say so, by lea michele. 
> 
> i'm so sorry in advance

If she hadn’t been selfish, Laura would still be alive.

That was what she got for wanting a few more minutes with her before her heart completely stopped beating inside her chest, stopped bombing blood through her arteries and veins. Her body would still be warm and her fingers would be squeezing Carmilla’s as she said she loved her.

Now Laura’s body was still warm, but the deafening beep sound coming from the monitor was constantly reminding her that Laura’s heart was no longer beating. The blood was still running inside her veins, but as slow as Laura’s last breath.

Laura didn’t talk to Carmilla for three days when the dark-haired girl told her she had decided to join the firefighter academy. The smaller one knew that it would include Carmilla risking her life to save other people’s lives and don’t get her wrong, it was so noble of her, but she wasn’t ready for that. She didn’t want to come home one day and find out Carmilla wasn’t because a building collapsed on top of her.

And Carmilla did walk into a lot of unsteady buildings, on fire buildings and all of those situations you only see on TV for those last ten months and Laura was still shaking every time she told her about the stories.

It had been a little bit more than a year now. Laura had now changed her mind and she couldn’t be prouder of her. But there was this one story, this one accident, that made Laura lose sleep for a week.

It was all over the news. A building had half collapsed and it was a freak show. It looked like the Pisa tower and, as if it wasn’t enough, the gas pipelines broke and it was this close to start a fire and burn the whole thing to the ground. Carmilla happened to still be on duty when they received the call, only twenty minutes before the end of her shift and for her to be able to go home safely.

“Carm, please, be careful. It’s all over the news already. It is not looking good.” Carmilla sighed when she heard Laura beg for the nineteenth time for her to just go back home.

“I will be okay, Laur. I promise I’ll see you in a few hours. Try to get some rest, it’s late. Okay?”

“You say like it’s easy. I love you.”

“I love you more,” Carmilla smiled as she sat inside the truck, the sirens already on and loud.

“If you say so.”

Carmilla had never seen such thing like that before and she had seen _a lot._ She didn’t know how that building was still up and not entirely on the ground.

The dark-haired girl could barely hear the captain’s voice over the noise and the screams for help coming from the crowd. Young ladies asking for their parents, boyfriends, girlfriends and older women asking about their children. Carmilla looked up to the building and, far away in the middle of the noise, she heard someone screaming to one of her workmates as they dragged her out of the building, only with a few scratches.

“My daughter! Her name is Olivia, she is still inside! Please!” She was so desperate and for a second Carmilla wondered why she left the building without the child. “They didn’t let me go back and get her. Please, find my daughter. She’s only six.”

“Hey, miss, what does she look like?” Carmilla jumped in as she walked closer towards them.

“She has two pigtails and she is wearing a dress with daisies on it, a white and yellow one. We were on the third floor.”

Without thinking twice and totally against her captain’s orders, Carmilla ran into the building to save the little girl. She heard her name being yelled multiple times and she knew she would be in trouble later, but to hell with that.

Carmilla knew it was a risked call but she had to save that little girl. Some parts of the building were already in flames and the smoke it was making it extremely difficult to breathe. The unsteadiness of the ground was doing nothing on Carmilla’s adrenaline driven system, so she ran up the stairs, also in shattered pieces, until the third floor. If one could say if it still was a floor.

It was nothing but ruins. Massive concrete blocks were blocking the way and oxygen started to lack.

“Olivia!” Carmilla breathed in all the oxygen she could to call out for the little girl. “Olivia!”

“Help!” She heard a weak voice in response somewhere between the fog.

“Olivia, where are you?”

“I’m here! It’s on my leg, help!”

_Shit._

“Keep talking!” Carmilla asked. She couldn’t see a thing, but if the little girl kept talking to her she could follow her voice.

That’s what she did. That’s how she found the little girl, in the white and yellow daisy dress.

With her leg stuck under a gas pipe.

A window broke as flames went up right on the fourth floor and Carmilla shivered with the thought of those flames reaching down that pipe.

“Hey, baby girl. I’m Carmilla and I’m going to help you out of this, okay?” Carmilla said and saw the little girl nod. She had a bruise on her forehead and she was coughing a lot.

The pipe was pressing her leg, a spot just above her ankle, against a piece of concrete and it was covered in blood. She needed to help her breathe or she would inhale too much carbon monoxide.

“I need you to help me, okay? We need to be fast.” Carmilla asked and the girl nodded once again. “Does your neck hurt?”

“No.”

“Okay, now listen. I’m going to pinch your leg, but I need to see if you hurt your back. Is that okay?”

“Okay,” she answered her and her breath came out shaky. Carmilla pinched her bruised leg lightly and saw the wrinkle up on her nose as she frown in pain. “Ouch.”

“Did you feel that?” Carmilla asked and when she nodded, she breathed out relieved. _No spinal injury, thank God._ Another cough coming from the little girl.

Carmilla looked around. It was a common office room with a ruined desk on the floor and a closed door.

“Do you know what’s behind that door?” Carmilla pointed and the girl looked up.

“It’s a bathroom,” she said.

 _I really should’ve brought my bag,_ Carmilla thought.

Carmilla quickly stood up and ran to kick the door open. The sink was intact, just like the toilet and the bath. She looked around and Carmilla wasn’t one to believe in miracle, but when she spotted the cabinet under the sink with towels in it, she didn’t doubt it was indeed a miracle for a second _._ She shoved one of them under the water running faucet and, when the towel was soaked, she ran back to the girl.

“Here, put this over your face.”

“But it’s wet.”

“I know. It will keep you from inhaling more smoke. You’ll be fine, okay? Now, let’s get you out. Can you move your leg? The one that’s under the pipe?” Carmilla asked and Olivia moved her feet and nodded right after. “Great. It’s going to hurt a little, but I want you to move your leg away when I say ‘go’. Do you understand?”

“Move leg away on _go._ Yes.”

“Don’t take the towel off your face, okay? Just keep it very close to your mouth and nose.”

Another window blew up, less than two meters from them. Carmilla positioned her hand under the pipe and when she tried to move it, it moved easily.

“One, two, three, _go!_ ” She yelled and saw the girl shift and move her leg away. Suddenly, the adrenaline running in her body seemed to decrease drastically because Olivia started to yell in pain. Carmilla took the girl in her arms“It’s okay, come here. Let’s go.”

Three minutes later Carmilla walked out of the building with the girl in her arms, seconds before the whole building shook again and another floor broke to the ground. She didn’t see much nor did she see clear – her vision was blurry and she thought she would faint. She had definitely inhaled more smoke than her body could handle, but Olivia was now inside the ambulance, receiving oxygen and getting her wound treated in her mother’s arms. So, totally worth it.

“Karnstein!” She heard the captain’s voice calling out her name and she rolled her eyes. She was screwed. “What the hell was that? Walking into a falling, _in flames_ building without your bag _and_ a mask?”

“To save a little girl.” She snapped.

“You have Laura at home waiting for you, Karnstein.”

“She’s home, she’s safe. That girl wasn’t. Her mother was also waiting for her here, outside. I’m not apologizing for saving a little girl’s life.”

“Stop trying to give yours away, then. You had a training for a reason.”

That night, Carmilla went home to a sleeping Laura on the living room couch, with the TV on in the news channel. Remote in hands and cellphone on her lap. The thought of Laura falling asleep while waiting for Carmilla to call broke her to pieces, but she was safely back home.

She just didn’t know that, a week later, Laura wouldn’t be.

Every single thing seemed to happen when she was on call. Laura had just gone out to buy them dinner, as she had texted her twenty minutes before.

A drunk driver speeding on a two-way street.

When they arrived, Laura’s body was no longer pressed against the guardrail; instead, it was laying on the floor, blood all around her.

“Karnstein, you better stand out for this one.” As soon as Carmilla stepped off the truck, the captain tried to stop her. As if it would work.

“What? Why?”

“Just stay inside the truck.”

“No, I want to know why I can’t help—“

Carmilla spotted hazel strands on the floor and that black leather jacket she knew very well because it was hers. The one Laura always stole. She felt the ground beneath her disappear. _She_ wanted to disappear. Her first instinct was to call Laura and make sure she was just tired and was seeing things. She wanted to make sure it was someone else and not Laura lying there.

She did. She dialed Laura’s number.

The shattered phone next to the person who was surrounded by paramedics started to ring and she saw the picture they took on their second anniversary pop up on the screen.

“No, no, no!” Carmilla pushed the man away and made her way to Laura’s body on the floor.

She kneeled on the floor next to Laura, making sure Laura knew she was there. “Laura! Hey, baby. Laur, it’s me.”

“Hey, Carm.” She tried to smile but she was just too weak. Carmilla wanted to cry.

“We need to get het into the ambulance. Right now.”

“I’m riding with her.” Carmilla tried to keep her pose and not cry, but how could she just watch that and not? It was too much.

“Carm, I… I…”

“Shh, Laur. Don’t talk, okay? We’re going to get you to the hospital.” Carmilla kissed her forehead before the paramedics buckled her onto the stretcher. “How long?”

“The cops said fifteen minutes.” One of her workmates who had gotten there before her answered with pity in his eyes.

“How bad?” A moment of silence. “Don’t. Just say it.”

“Her entire torso was pressed against the guardrail. He was going 80 on a 50. He was so drunk he could barely say his own name. I’m taking a wild guess and saying the spinal damage…”

“I know.” Carmilla breathed out as another sob came.

“She’s decompensating. We need to intubate her. But, you know what happens if that tube goes in.”

“No, wait.” Carmilla asked and the paramedic did as she said.

She took a deep breath and walked to the ambulance. Carmilla walked in. They closed the door. The sirens were on. The paramedic had just attached a monitor to Laura’s chest.

“Carm, I’m so tired.” Her voice was dragged and Carmilla could see how her eyelids were heavy. “I just want to sleep.”

“Laura, stay with me. Stay awake.” Carmilla asked as she held her hand, but Laura didn’t respond. “The hospital is five minutes away. Just hold on, Laur. I can’t do this without you.”

Her breaths started to get slower and slower and it felt like she couldn’t pull the air.

“I’m dying, Carm.” Laura’s words made a hole in Carmilla’s chest and she wanted to die. She had trained for that situation before. She never thought she’d be the one losing someone. “I know it. You taught me… told me…”

“Laur, please.” Carmilla cried and she felt her heart clenching painfully inside her chest as she heard the beeping sounds slowing down on the monitor. _No, please. Don’t take her away. Please._

“It’s okay, Carm.”

“It’s _not_ okay, Laura! Please, I need you.”

“I love you, Carm.” She choked on her own breathing before the words came out clean.

“I love you more.”

Laura gasped for air again. Her lips were turning bluer and bluer. Carmilla wanted to scream and, even then, it still wouldn’t be enough to ease that excruciating pain that’s watching the love of your life die in your arms.

Laura gathered up all of the strength she had in her body to turn her face muscles up in a smile. A weak one, but that beautiful smile that made Carmilla’s heart grow three sizes the first time she saw it. And every single time she smiled because of her.

“If you say so,” Laura breathed out for the last time.

Her eyes closed very slowly and Carmilla felt her grip loosening on her hand. The flat sound coming from the monitor was muffled in Carmilla’s ears and she refused to believe that it was happening.

When they arrived at the hospital, Laura’s heart wasn’t beating anymore. Carmilla had done CPR for three minutes. Her vitals on the monitor were flat. She knew that even if she woke up, the severe brain damage would still be there. Carmilla never knew that pain could reach that level. Laura had died because of her. Laura had died because she just wanted a few more seconds with her before that tube could go in and, hell, even that wouldn’t work out.

Carmilla never thought she would see Laura die.

Carmilla never thought she would be responsible for it.

If she hadn’t been selfish, Laura would still be alive.


End file.
